Greedy Goblin

Tuesday, February 14, 2012

Space goblin

For long I avoided EVE. I even wrote a post explaining the reasons why I prefer WoW where I can reach the socials.

However for a week I had more time on my hand as usual and tried EVE. I liked it very much. For a first time I was playing a game instead of running some blogging project in a game. I'd like to talk about my first impressions as someone with less than 4 days old character (in EVE you "level up" in real time, so no matter how much you play a day you can't have higher skills). The graphics is breathtaking, the character creation has insane amount of customization (I run with a very generic face of course). There are several empires and factions, but they are not so different from each other.

The rookie missions (quests) are well-designed and teach everything. They also give about 6M ISK (credits), partially as liquid, but mostly as ships and books that you can sell. I recommend new players that after completing the starter questline, do them again, twice (location of other questgivers). You repeat important lessons and you also get 2x6M ISK, along with reputation.

Contrary to the popular belief, learning EVE is not at all complicated. I mean there are 5 "classes" in EVE, the explorer who finds hidden places, the miner who mine asteroids, the trader who buys and sells, the manufacturer who builds items from raw materials and the fighter who kill pirates (NPCs) and other players. The starting missions teach the basics. After that, there are further missions, which are similar to WoW dailies, the same ones show up at different places. The difficulty of the missions ramp up at will, you can choose how difficult you are ready to face. While you can die and lose your ship even at the starting zone, the early ships are very cheap (I mean you can buy a new one from the reward of one mission) and if you'd lose absolutely everything, the insurance company would give you a newbie ship for free which you can use to do an easy mission and you are back on your Condor/Bantham again. Also, there is insurance for losing the ship.

So I can seriously tell that getting started in EVE is not at all harder than the same in WoW. Of course I'm not talking about the endgame here. What is "hard" in EVE is the huge amount of options. In WoW you are always told what to do. You spawn front of a guy with exclamation mark on his head and he tells you to go there and kill that and then another guy shows up with an exclamation mark and it goes on up to lvl 85. Also, the aim of leveling is clear too: to get to lvl 85. In EVE, after the starter missions there is no storyline. Also, the skill training system is unaffected by your playing, so you can't play to progress your character, there is no "I must go to mine to level mining skill". You can do missions (dailies) but the question "why" is looming over your head. Why shall I get reputation with that faction? Why shall I get more skills? Why shall I mine those asteroids? Why am I killing these pirates? Why am I here?

EVE is a sandbox game, where you must find your own "why"? The "how" is not hard at all. Probably that's why they say "the learning curve ramps up", because at the start you are busy exploring the world and learning. When you are more and more proficient in what you are doing you more and more often faced with the question "why".

I did not find my "why" yet. Maybe I won't and I'll stop playing like those hundreds of thousands, maybe millions who did not upgrade their 14 days trial account. After they answered their "how", they found the game boring. The first "how" has to be answered after the starter missions. Shall I run my Cormorant against pirates? Shall I go mining? Shall I run the Heron I got to scan down hidden artifacts? Shall I run missions and elevate my standing with an empire? How shall I play?

Seriously, was it a question for a second?

However "trading" is still just a "how". I will ramp up ISK in no time and I already run a Badger II. Soon I'll have a Bustard. But to continue playing, I must find "why". I hope I will, as I like the basic idea of "no welfare, earn everything yourself" which is so different from WoW where you just have to /follow the healer to get shiny.

I doubt you can pull up that one by yourself (goonswarm is, as you may know, one of the biggest alliances), but you get the idea.Moreover I heard that 4-5 people are controling the PLEX market (the ingame item that gives you game time) in the whole game, but that maybe is just a conspiracy theory, but my thought is, that you can go pretty deep in dicking around with the economy. These two points I brought make me think you are not correct in your notion that you cannot reach the socials - see the ice interdiction.If you make a corporation in Eve (with some nefarious masterplan in background), I'll sign up.

Hahahahaaaaa, you magnificent bastard! I should have made a bet you’d do it eventually. I’d be rich now. Welcome to EVE Online: A Bad Game.

Metagaming – it’s all in the metagaming. Before I switched to EVE, I had done all the homework, read all that was to read. Made the decision beforehand I would not be wasting time in empire, grind missions and PVE carebear. I had never PvPd in WoW practically, but 2 weeks into EVE I was in nullsec. I have been in 1000+ man battles, got murdered by titan blobs, did incredibly stupid things, got murdered again, made tons of money, having a blast… It’s awesome!

Tips:- a ‘sport’ I have discovered: go to eve-kill.net, and just watch the livestream. And watch them come in. The violence. The loss. The destruction of ship and ISK. All must be replaced, re-bought, resold…- rule of acquisition 34 – war is good for business http://eve-kill.net/?a=kill_related&kll_id=12408783- if you ever want to do this pvp-war thing, train logistics 5. Yup, it’s the same in every game, you never have enough heals.- Watch your badger mk II. I’d hate to see you at the top of eve-kill- train Thick Skin to V …

Maybe we’ll meet some day Goblin, and shoot at each other. It’s a small sandbox out there. It’ll be an e-honor.

There is a really good and comprehensive guide for EVE... I advise you to start reading it, and then you will see how deep and complex EVE is. It's ok that only 5 "classes", but there are really different subclasses there. EVE is simple only at the first glance. But you can play for years and still there will be things you dont know.

Oh, I just read your post again. To transfer money to an alt/anyone:1) type the full name of the anyone in a chat window2) select highlight the whole name3) right click the selected text Auto Link > Character4) right click the (now hyperlinked) name again > Give Money5) transfer money with zero noob-tax6) profit!!!

i've read your blog since i found it 3(+?) years back. i was goldcapped in wow when i quit 10 months ago.

i set myself a challenge when i started EvE to only play if i could activate my trial account with PLEX. i did that after playing several back to back 30 day trials(these dont exist anymore. 21 do) for about two months.

station trading ammo in dodixie and other mission hubs i was able to turn 100m into 500m in the last 3 weeks of the process.

you can actually redo the career agents without rerolling an alt. there are 3 locations for each race and your main can do them all.

http://wiki.eveonline.com/en/wiki/Career_Agents

as a bonus if you pick two allied factions (minmatar / gallente)you can get your faction standings almost high enough to do lvl 4 agents (5.0 standing) in a very short time (note your combat skills will be lacking)

No, I will not join the Goonfleet or any other warring corp. I'm pretty happy trading. Of course later when I get the abilities to do nullsec trading I'll join but I doubt if I ever look for battle. Of course in EVE battle can find you, so I'll be prepared but not looking for it.

@Steel: Ship insured to platinum, clone updated, ship fitted with defensive abilities, I never fly autopilot with cargo on board, and I trade between stations on high sec. So to kill me you have to be a suicide ganker that dish out enough damage to finish while I run shield booster overloaded before the stargate cannons destroy you (assuming you can warp scramble, if you can't, I just warp away).

A lot of isk can be made by trading, however you can also get the casual players/carebears to make it for you. Just set up a corp, recruit lots of bears. (promise to take them on the occasional low sec roam or something to make them feel like a PVP god..) then set the corps tax rate at 10-20% so every time they kill a decent rat or mission you get a slice of their income. This should keep you in timecodes/ships ect if you get a decent sized corp going?

As an EVE player and also a WoW player, i can tell ya one thing : those 2 gammes are completely diferent.

The complexity in EvE is BEYOND any rookie player can comprehend.Simply spliting the game into traders, missioners, pvpers, manufacturers, etc is the worst thing you can try to do to "explain" EVE.

EVE online is not for 99% of WoW players, and probably for 99% of ANY mmorpg player.Its hard, its complex, its requires HUGE amounts of time spent in the game, and, requires, yes , a MINIMUM age to be able to pass 1 year into EVE gaming.

The average EVE player is 28 years old.This alone should give you a reason why EVE is hard to play AND enjoy it.

"So I can seriously tell that getting started in EVE is not at all harder than the same in WoW."

Can't agree with that one. And considering you played the tutorial I am a bit suprised about your claim.

Imho, the amount of info presented in those 5 tutorial mission-sets alone is multitudes higher than what you will learn in WoW by leveling to max level. And those tutorial missions are barely scratching the surface of each career path.

For example: Do you really think Arthaslolkid will ever be able to probe down a wormhole? Or survive in one for more than a minute? Yet he will make it to 85 on his DK in spirit gear and pollute your heroic run.

I really think you lost touch of what counts as "difficult" for the average player here.

-----

Margin trading:A skill that allows you to setup buy-orders with less cash on your char than the buy order is worth (e.g. you only have 100 mio ISK but can setup a buy order for 300 mio). If somebody wants to fill the entire buy-order while you don't have the cash, the buy-order will simply be canceled without any transaction (not even part of it).Scam: setup a buy-order way above market prize and at the same time sell that item for way over market prize, but lower than your buy-order. People will see the buy-order, think they can go for an easy profit, buy your overprized item, try to sell to your buy-order, which will fail because you don't have the cash to full-fill it. Your profit: item sold for way over market prize.

Needs to be done on two seperate chars of course and there are some more deails (for example, using minimum quantities in your buy order etc.).

@GevlonBut in EVE arthasloldk can't even kill a single "mob". Heck I have a bet that most of them can't even go to another "map", or move the ship... so it's not that they just play low level stuff. They almost can't do anything. I think most of them just saw the interface and just hit alt+F4...

Just watching the "Rookie" channel on a new account (and even the newbie NPC corp channel) reveals the Arthaslolkids complete dependency upon a hand to hold.

On the subject of the margin trading scam, EVE margin trading isn't real margin trading (as we know it), as there is no collateral requirement to "insure" the margin. I have to believe that this scammable "version" of margin trading was a conscious design choice.

You have learned well young padawan (damn this thing). Generally, if you just carry around low value crap you are mostly safe. It's when you start running arround with hundreds of millions (or more http://killboard.gypsyband.ru/kill/738273/) of stuff in a T1 industrial that you run into trouble. If you get cargo scanned and are worth enough money, and the pirates are determined, they will make sure they have what it takes to get you. T1 haulers are made of paper and are difficult to fit. EFT is your friend, learn to love it.

The Tornado also changed the rules of the game - it will do around 10k alpha give or take, locks superfast with sebos. It will negate most of traditional stuff short of a HP buffer big enough to resist it (assuming only one ganker, and he only gets one shot off). Many will say it's OP...

Lets see how much you've learned - test quiz: what is the safest way to transport a large ammount os super valuable cargo through hisec?

@Steel: I just got ganked since I went into a 0.4. They seemed to be random griefers than pirates. They ship was empty so with insurance I lost about 2M. Next time I pass trough 0.4, I bring a frigate in my cargo hold, dock on the last high sec system and pass with frigate first. Gankers will kill that, not the transporter.

Otherwise if I could pass that one system I could make 0.5M profit, so worth the risk, learned from it. My mistake was expecting loot-oriented pirates and not morons who gank for fun.

About your question: pack into 2 levels of containers, and next to the containers put 100 different kind of crap so their scanner list will be 101 lines long.

Alternatively: pay good money for a proper armed escort which includes a logistics.

Oh, yes, sociopaths, I forgot to mention about them. Two neutral strangers coming across each other in a non Concord space, tipping their hats and going on their merry ways doesn't exist in this game. Everything is kill on sight if it isn't blue - if you can. Actually, this transcends moronism, sociopathy, griefing, piracy. It's the primordial ape-man going out into the wild, killing everything he finds, then displaying the scalps on the walls of his cave - if that ape-man was driving megadeath spaceships. Immagine if WoW had killmails...

- don't go to low/null sec unless you are looking for pvp and explosions, and until you have solid skills, proper ships and know what you are doing. Surviving lowsec is the exception, not the rule- read the Mittani's blog Sins of a Solar Spymaster at tentonhammer. It will give you lots of insights into how the mind of EVE sociopaths works- the goons old leaked wiki is a wealth of information, much of it still relevant, and you will learn a lot about ships and fits and everything. Some is obsolete though (like the Tanked Empire AFK Hauler in the Tornado age http://eveinfo.net/wiki/ind~1816.htm)- get EVE Fitting Tool, play with it- safest way to transport valuables in empire (in the billions) is the Orca's corporate hangar - though you have a while until you'll be able to fly one. It cannot be scanned, it does not drop, and does not appear on killmails, and the orca has more EHP that battleships when properly fit. It's what this guy should have been using http://eve-kill.net/?a=kill_detail&kll_id=12431357. Nothing is 100% safe though - there are even 'morons' that gank orcas for lulz.- look up innertial stabilisers, warp core stabiliseres, damage controls, shield extenders and shield hardeners, cloaks, astrometric rigs.They will do you good...- look up the the ingame starmap or evemaps.dotlan.net, look at the systems you plan to cross, look at active pilots in space, ship/pods kills in the last (). It updates every 30 minutes http://evemaps.dotlan.net/map/Lonetrek#kills24. Also if I'm not mistaken, Aunenen is a major hub/chockepoint for freighters on major routes from Jita to nullsec. I wonder why there are so may kills in there...- what were you planning to do with a web and a 75mm rail on a badger anyway?

you can use the search function to search for names, corps, systems etc.Every kill that ever happends gets automatically uploaded and processed or manually posted. All corps will also have their own killboards where their memebers will post all kills and losses are displayed. This stuff drives EVE more than anything.

Like I said, one sport I have discovered recently is just to watch the livestream - it's fascinating. I click the various mails, try to immagine their stories, the events (cue noir jazz soundtrack).. a war dec, a suicide gank, a lost covert pilot in the depths of null or wormhole space, a major clash between hundreds of ships...

It can also give you insights into ship fittings, and the general way things are going in EVE.

Also, there is no reason whatsoever to lose your pod in lowsec. When you see that you are going to die (in low structure or similar), select nearby planet/moon and mash "warp" button. Also make sure to warp away from that location as soon as you land, as your killers can see direction you are warping to and may follow.

Pod kills are juicy for killer, and very risky for victim - you may lose skill points that way.

@first gevlon's comment:not intended as an insult in any way, but..My first thought was "look, a shield booster on a paper-thin industrial.. how cute!"

That to say: Suiciding a t1 indy is the exact opposite of expensive. Make an effort to hide something and someone will think you're hiding something.As a general rule, no one will bother under 10m of cargo, and most likely, under 50m.Oh, and if you want to get in the supply-chain part - the 0.0 import/export game - you'll have to join a fightning alliance, no way around it.I guess there's someone with a love for danger who seeds some 0.0 non-sov hubs, though.

I think I might enjoy reading you posts about the economy of EVE Gevlon so I hope you keep playing. I cannot give you a "Why" but I can suggest a medium term goal for you - build a self sustaining business empire that generates enough profit every month to pay for your subscription. The going rate for a 60 day timecard seems to be about 720 million ISK so there is your challenge.

Gevlon, it's kind of funny how you try to analize EVE in WOW's terms. I'm following your blog for quite a while, and I was always wondering what will you write about EVE when your time comes. Your approach to WOW and social engineering is interesting and fun to read, but the way you write about EVE is just awkward. EVE is much deeper than what you understand at this point of your jurney, and I hope -if you continue- that you'll be honest enough to ackonwledge your delusions regarding EVE.

You -at this point in time- show all the symptoms of a newcomer to EVE, and I hope you'll manage to actually learn the real game instead of generalizing the game based on a very-very limited pool of experience you have and you can have for a while. Read a lot about it, this is a game where learning from someone else's mistake goes a long way. Overlooking it can cost people whole alliances, not just currency.

You bought one of my auctions in Jouvulen on the 09/02. Small universe! Anyway head to Jita it kind of important in the trading stuff. The place seems to greatly influence the surrounding areas trading.

Your shieldbooster won't help you against suicide gankers, they will simply 1-shot you with arty cannons.If you want to move high-vallue stuff around use either a blockade runner (fast, agile and can warp cloaked) or an Orca (anything inside a corporate hangar cannot be shipscanned and cannot drop either).Just don't use the orca in anything other then highsec or you will lose it.